Rabbi Makes Argument Against Enforced Sunday Observance

Julius T. Loeb, “Rabbi Makes Argument Against Enforced Sunday Observance,” Washington Post (Washington, DC), March 28, 1926.

Rabbi Makes Argument Against Enforced Sunday Observance—Declares Such “Moral Legislation Unfair and Like Prohibition Law in Creating Dangerous Condition of Disrespect for Government—Says Dry Law Results in Evil.

    To the Editor of The Post—Sir: It is not fair to all concerned, nor is it safe from a moral standpoint to enact such laws as will work hardship and discomfort to many. 

    They who attend movie shows, or other places of amusement on Sundays are, for the most part, hardworking people who seek a respite or breathing spell from their harassing occupations all through the week. They go to a show usually in company with their near relatives or business associates, and are kept within decent surroundings while enjoying an hour or two of wholesome diversion and the educational features as are often presented on the screen. Many of them also manage to attend church on the same day.

    The theatergoers on Sunday represent people of all classes, conditions and walks of life, including the “tired business man,” no less than the laboring man, the professional man and the drudgery-plagued housewife. (Only idlers need no special Sunday hours for recreation. Such persons could take their time on any day, for any purpose of their own.)

    If you turn the vast multitudes out of the movie houses into the streets, but few will stay home on Sunday, and still less will go to church, because of the forced measure.

    It is strange but true, that all such measures of undesired restriction have but a contrary effect and the pious wish of the overzealous Lord’s Day Alliance unwittingly will be turned into demoralizing influence, rather than improving and edifying the community. 

    Persons thus left to themselves on the day appointed for rest and recreation will break away from home and surroundings and seek their diversion in hiding. Many will find their way into low dives, gambling resorts and dens of sin and corruption.

    A similar condition was brought about by the enactment of the all-too well known and disrespected “bone-dry” measure of prohibition. The eighteenth amendments, which is a “misfit” in the Constitution of the United States, has driven the saloon nuisance out of the public gaze into hiding places. There it exists now in its awful potentiality and baleful effect, creating havoc and contaminating the homes and households in all cities and States of the Union. There were communities with clear record and people who never thought of drinking alcoholic liquors before the prohibition had set in. There are none today. Illicit distilleries and bootlegging are rampant everywhere. Crime has increased to an enormous degree. And we have yet to see the man who is not an offender against the prohibition law, by practice, proxy, or the mere knowledge and consent at trespasses of the kind. 

    It is simply disgusting to see how this all too serious and drastic prohibition measure has been turned into a huge joke, and it is met with nothing but sneering and open contempt, thus breeding brutal disregard for all law and order. And it is said, curiously enough, that they who cry loudest for prohibition are those who represent the bootlegging interests. Here is where two extremes meet.

    The evil results of the prohibition law will undoubtedly be reenacted in the now proposed stringency of the Sunday-closing movement. Shut out of their legitimate enjoyment at motion pictures and theatrical performances on Sunday, a large number of people will seek and find their diversion in illegitimate ways.

    The Talmud most aptly declared: “No decree should be issued which a majority of the people are unable to withstand.” (Baba Kama 79b.)

    RABBI J. T. LOEB.

    222 I street northwest.